3D Software?

Sadly, Lightwave doesn't have a Mac version. I may goof around with the trial in Windows, anyway... all of my art software is Mac, though, so setting up a workflow would be awful.

Blenders' curves work by essentially pasting in a generic curve which must be modified into the shape you want. This is no way to create curves.

Maya's are a little better, but as far as I can tell, are missing little things which make Illustrator's beziers so nice... like holding shift to force a 90 degree handle and fast ways to chop a handle off. Maybe those commands are in there somewhere, but I haven't found them. It's also expensive, of course.

ILM used Maya on SGI workstations throughout the 1990's and at least up until around 2003. They used Macs for almost every other computing aspect though, and most people had both systems at their desks. It should be noted that at one point places like ILM didn't need both SGIs and Macs because there were versions of things like Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, Framemaker and Acrobat for IRIX (I have copies of most of those on my SGIs). The problem was that they became antiquated quite fast after they stopped being made for the platform (the last version of Photoshop for IRIX was 3.0.1) and they needed the other tools handy. Maya wasn't the only tool that they were using their SGIs for though... Pixar's Renderman, Shake and a bunch of great effects software by Discreet (which is now Autodesk) were all great reasons to stay with SGIs.

On the question of what Pixar used... they are a software company (they develop and sell Renderman). But they try to stay platform neutral... more importantly, since they used their movies to help sell software, they have attempted to use a different platform for each major movie since Toy Story (which was done using SGI workstations and a Sun Microsystems render farm). As I recall, Finding Nemo was done on IBM workstations running Linux. Renderman has been available for many platforms, but only NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP had elements of the software built into the operating system.

I'm sure that Pixar uses Final Cut Pro Studio, Logic Studio and Shake on Macs for some aspects of editing, but unless Disney has put an end to the software side of Pixar, they tend to like to make the point that their software makes great 3D renderings no matter what platform you are using. The only time a platform was given special treatment was for NeXT, but all the Renderman aspects of NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP were removed when Apple started development on Mac OS X. Pixar gave Apple no special treatment after Apple acquired NeXT in December of 1996.

Related question... For a small (or not so small, depends ) project using VRML, I am looking for a 3D modelling tool that exports to VRML 2.0 (VRML97). It should be as free and as intuitive (in this order) as possible, and doesn't need to have too many functions - I never tried 3D modelling before, and only need to produce relatively simple shapes.

I hope someone will be able to help me out with some suggestions...

Click to expand...

Hi Guys - I'm the guy building the TOS Enterprise in VRML
from the inside - out using the Franz Joseph Designs deck plans
and what I can use from the series sets.
Did I mention that it was life-sized?
I know it's a little cartoon-ish, but then who isn't!

I've made videos of my progress on youtube.
Thanks Eric Cheung for your links - I followed them backward and joined the BBS.

This is what you can make using just straight VRML,
without a modeling package - NO MODELING SOFTWARE.

Are you interested enough to try to build something in VRML?
It's not that tough if I can do it - it's just a little trig...

I've used straight text files containing VRML, even built the files
using excel, vb, vba, access - you have a whole lot of possible tools,
but I still rely on the windows calculator and a text file.

If anyone's using Blender, there's a new site out there called Blenducation with frequent classes on using Blender. Some of the classes cost from $10 to $20 (US), but a lot of them are free and there are archives. I highly recommend the free sessions -- they're focused on a subject, but informal and there are plenty of opportunities to ask questions and learn new tricks.

Okay, my wife is a teacher and her school is spending about $200,000 in updating the school's computers. As an incentive, the company is offering an interesting opportunity to obtain free software, including 3D programming software. The IT guy knows I am interested in this type of stuff, but is not knowledgeable about the different pros and cons of the various programs.

I have Blender, but I haven't fiddled with it. At all. Family and kids getting in the way, but I am starting to get some free time at night. Mind you I am a complete novice and will need plenty of manuals or other tutorials to assist. I always built plastic models, not computer generated graphics.

Given my lack of skill (I am relatively quick on the pick up, but need to have manuals/tutorials that teach the ins and outs with pictures - Dummy Guides don't work for me) what do you suggest as an alternative?

The list I have culled from this posting is as follows (I may not be able to obtain all of them, or it might be earlier versions):

Well, I can't speak for most of that list (only played around with Blender a little), but you can probably cut truespace from that list, since it was announced the other day that it is going the way of the Dodo.

Thanks for the suggestions. Any more will help if you can think of them. In this case, it appears that price is not an issue, since the company is bascially throwing the programs in with the rest of the computer package.

I'm determined to stop using a pen and paper and go back to using my laptop to make pretty pictures.

I've read through this thread, took some notes and downloaded whatever was free. Seeing as I'm extremely impatient, which would be recommended for getting used to reasonably quickly? Blender seems to be one of the best here, but I assume I'd pull my hair out before being able to draw a circle.

I'm determined to stop using a pen and paper and go back to using my laptop to make pretty pictures.

I've read through this thread, took some notes and downloaded whatever was free. Seeing as I'm extremely impatient, which would be recommended for getting used to reasonably quickly? Blender seems to be one of the best here, but I assume I'd pull my hair out before being able to draw a circle.

Click to expand...

How to draw a circle in Blender:

Open Blender.

Position one hand on the keyboard, and one on the mouse (I'm serious here, the interface was originally designed for speed and to maximize the benefit of this posture. That's less true today, but still a good rule of thumb.)

The default cube is probably highlighted. Delete it by hitting the x key (the delete key will work too) and confirming the operation. The confirm menu choice should be directly under the mouse pointer, just click. One hand on the keyboard, one on the mouse.

Hit the space bar. A menu will appear with the Add option under the pointer. To the right of this (usually) will appear a sub-menu with the entries "Mesh", "Curve", "Surface", "Meta", "Text", "Empty", "Group", "Camera", "Lamp", "Armature", and "Lattice".

A dialog box will appear asking for details about the circle. By default, your new circle will have 32 vertices (points between lines or edges), a radius of one Blender unit (an arbitrary scale that can mean one meter, one inch, one furlong, one light-year, etc.), and a toggle button for filling the circle with faces so the circle becomes a flat disk. Leave the default settings for now and just click "Ok".

You have a circle ... or, rather, a 32-sided polygon that in many instances looks smooth enough to stand in for a circle. If you need smoother edges, add more vertices. Yes, there are tools for creating true, perfect circles, and they're just as easy to use, but for many modeling needs, this works fine.

You might notice your circle exactly circumscribes a smaller cross-hair type cursor. This is your 3D cursor. New objects and other operations will be placed based on its location.

Your circle should be a pinkish color, unless you've changed preferences. You're in object mode, and the pink color indicates this object is selected. Now hit the tab key, this puts you in edit mode and you can now edit your shape. You can exit edit mode and return to object mode by hitting the tab key again, but stay in edit mode a moment longer. You'll see the circle has turned yellow with 32 small yellow boxes equally spaced around it. Each of those little boxes is a vertex. RIGHT-click on one. Hit the g key and move your mouse around. You no longer have a circle. You could also have grabbed that green and red arrow structure thing that appeared around the vertex you right-clicked on and simply dragged that. This was a relatively recent addition to Blender that I usually turn off as soon as I start modeling because it's just not how I'm used to doing things, dang nabbit!

Anyway, welcome to Blender. Feel free to move more vertices around. You can also drag edges or faces, extrude new vertices, edges, or faces, rotate them, scale them, color them, texture them ... but, that's all for another post.

I'm determined to stop using a pen and paper and go back to using my laptop to make pretty pictures.

I've read through this thread, took some notes and downloaded whatever was free. Seeing as I'm extremely impatient, which would be recommended for getting used to reasonably quickly? Blender seems to be one of the best here, but I assume I'd pull my hair out before being able to draw a circle.